“Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.”
Matthew Henry
“The Lord’s mercy often rides to the door of our heart upon the black horse of affliction.”
Charles H. Spurgeon
(quince blooms dying on the branch due to the bitter cold / Julie Cook / 2015)
How long O Lord am I to stay
Troubled
Burdened
Broken?
Do you not see or hear me as I lay in misery?
Can you not see that I am afflicted of both mind and body?
I sit in the mire and I need You, desperately
Yet I fear Your silence.
My soul wrestles deep within me
It twists and turns in anguished pain
My body is consumed by the searing heat
as my soul withers in silent torment
Do not forsake me O Lord. . .
Have You turned your back on me?
Have You forgotten your servant?
My mind aches to make sense of this
Yet my soul finds nothing but emptiness
The tormenters mock and scoff at my pleas
What have I done?
What haven’t I done?
You take no delight in burnt offerings or sacrifice
All I have to give to You is a withering body
and an anguished mind–
Up until now that is all I thought I could offer You. . .
Just as I am broken of body and broken mind,
there, however, remains a seemingly impenetrable fortress
The last barrier separating me from all that Is and all that Will Be. . .
My will, which is the last defense of self. . .
Tearing down the unseen walls of ego and pride
Truly giving to You all that I am. . .
Abandoning
Forsaking
Relinquishing
Not only the brokeness of a physical body and brooding mind,
but the final brokeness of self
That I may yield to You O Lord
That I may not fight what happens. . .
As I have truly no control of the unseen events. . .
Rather that I may let go,
The I may truly give it all to You with no looking back
That I may trust
That I may rest
For in my brokeness, I find only wholeness in. . .
You
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